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WASHINGTON: Pakistan's state-endorsed discrimination, and in some cases extermination, of its minorities has finally caught the eye of Washington lawmakers.

Coming on the heels of support in Congress for a Baloch homeland in the face of Islamabad's depredations in the region, a US Congressman has zeroed in on the abduction and forced religious conversion of Hindus in the country highlighted by the case of Rinkel Kumari .

In a sharply-worded letter to Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari, Congressman Brad Sherman urged him to take action to ensure the return of Rinkel Kumari to her family, pursuant to reports that she had been abducted with the help of a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) lawmaker.

In a case that has been widely reported in the liberal Pakistani media, Rinkel , who was abducted on February 24, was forced to marry one Naveed Shah and convert to Islam .

She was subsequently produced before a civil judge twice ,but she was reportedly coerced into claiming that she had converted on her own will, even as her family was denied access to her in kangaroo court proceedings that revealed in video clips to be led by a frenzied mob of zealots , including armed followers of the Pakistani lawmaker .

According to Pakistani civil liberties activists in Washington, Rinkel was allegedly threatened while in police custody that if she did not change her statement, she and her family would be killed.

"Rinkel's case is just one case of abduction and forced religious conversion in Pakistan," Sherman said in the letter to Zardari, citing the Asian Human Rights commission figure of 20-25 kidnappings and forced conversions of Hindu girls in Sindh every month.

The Rinkel Kumari case was brought to the attention of US lawmakers not by Hindu activists but by the Sindhi American Political Action Committee (SAPAC ), a lobby group that , like the Baloch groups , is increasingly asserting the secular and syncretic identity of Pakistan's Sindhi community in the face of growing Islamization in the country .

Sapac activists are telling US lawmakers that state sponsored discrimination against minority groups in Pakistan is rampant and is causing Hindus to migrate out of Pakistan in droves.

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